Once teams start spraying champagne, you may think it's time to stop
paying attention to what's left of the regular season. But there will be
stiff fines to any of you readers who take that stance.
If you need reasons to stay tuned for the final week, we present a few
Dubious Achievements To Watch as we roar down the stretch:
Lima time
There's no shortage of great Jose Lima feats to watch. For one
thing, he needs just three gopherballs in his final start to tie Bert
Blyleven's hallowed record for most home runs served up in a season (50, in
1986). And since Lima just broke the record for most starts allowing three
homers or more (eight), that's far from out of the question.
But beyond that, Lima has a chance to win one of baseball's most
rarified triple crowns -- most homers, triples and doubles allowed. He's
first in homers (47), tied for first in doubles (52) and one behind teammate
Chris Holt in triples (8). That makes 107 extra-base hits, by the way -- the
most in at least the last 21 seasons (see list below). We're still
researching the last man to allow this many -- assuming there was one.
The RBI man
Enzo Hernandez can rest easy, because Florida leadoff whiz Luis
Castillo will not break his record for fewest RBI in a season of 500
at-bats. Hernandez knocked in 12 in 1971. Castillo's two-RBI explosion this
week got him all the way up to 15. But Castillo still has other RBI feats to
shoot for.
He has 516 at-bats, and the fewest RBI in a 550-at-bat season is 19, by
Morrie Rath in 1912. Castillo also has 176 hits. And the fewest RBI for a
player with that many hits is 24, by Don Blasingame in 1959.
Finally, Castillo is hitting .341. And the fewst RBI since 1900 by a guy
with an average that high is 27, by Lloyd Waner, who drove in 27 while
hitting .355 in 1927, and Matty Alou, who also drove in 27 while winning the
batting title with a .342 average in 1966. He'd better have a lot of runners
in scoring position this last week.
The more strikeouts than hits club
Brant Brown already had a dubious defensive claim to fame in his
career (for dropping that fly ball during the Cubs' 1998 stretch drive). Now
he can add a dubious offensive claim.
His current totals for the season: 62 strikeouts, 28 hits, a ratio
that makes Preston Wilson look like Joe DiMaggio. Only one hitter in recent
times had more than twice as many strikeouts as hits with that high a
strikeout total: The legendary Rob Deer (71 K, 30 H in 1985, and 175 K, 80
hits in the most amazing more-strikeouts-than-hits-season ever in 1991).
A not-so-perfect 10
Roy Halladay heads for the mound in Toronto Saturday facing far more
pressure than he probably even realizes. His ERA for the season, going into
that start, is 10.41, in 64 innings. And according to the Elias Sports
Bureau, no pitcher with that many innings has ever finished a season with an
ERA over 10.00.
The current record holder is Steve Blass, at 9.81 in 89 innings,
back in 1973. So here's what Halladay would need to do to get his ERA below
Blass': either five shutout innings (9.65) or one earned run in six innings
(9.64) or two in seven innings (9.63) or three in eight innings (9.63). The
bad news is, he has no starts this year that meet any of those criteria.
Team competition
In other matters, the Royals (227), Cubs (224) and Astros (223) all
have a shot to break the all-time single-season gopherballing record of 241,
set by the '96 Tigers. The NL record, if the Cubs and Astros are interested,
is 237 (by the '99 Rockies).
The Astros, meanwhile, are just about a lock to become the first NL
team ever to have a higher ERA than the Rockies. Houston is at 5.43,
Colorado at 5.27. More proof that Enron Field can be just as hazardous to
your ERA as Coors.
The Reds have fired 91 wild pitches -- and need just three to tie the
major-league record of 94, set by Charlie Hough's '86 Rangers.
With 700 walks issued already, the Brewers staff needs to average a
hair over four a game over the last nine games to break the NL record for
most walks in a season (737 by the '99 Rockies).
Never has the schedule remained more of an issue in
the final week than it has this year. The Indians continue to complain about
having to play that two-team doubleheader against the White Sox and Twins on
Monday, while Oakland is being permitted to make up its rained out game
against Tampa Bay the day after the season, if necessary.
"If the Indians can find a place for the A's to play that
game (before Sunday), we'll be happy to have them play it," says Katy Feeney
of the commissioner's office. "Maybe Des Moines. Or Lincoln, Neb."
But the A's are also unhappy. They wanted to play
Game 2 of their scheduled day-nighter in Baltimore on Tuesday, even though
the first game (theoretically, the day end) didn't end until after 10 p.m.
But the commissioner's office called that one, too, without giving the A's a
say in the matter.
That postponement meant Oakland had to play
another day-nighter the next day before flying across the country to play in
Seattle the following night. And it meant the A's couldn't pitch Gil Heredia
(3-0 vs. Seattle this year) in the Mariners series, because his start in
Baltimore was pushed back a day.
But after allowing his team to grumble about
that for a day, A's GM Billy Beane said he wanted that talk stopped the next
day.
"It stinks, but that's life," Beane says.
"You deal with it. If you dwell on it, you let it affect you more than it
should. So you move on. In Oakland, if we complained about everything that
didn't go our way, we'd never stop complaining. There are a million reasons
we shouldn't get to the playoffs. But you don't dwell on them. You move on
and play."
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List of the week
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As we reported earlier, Jose Lima is in rarified territory --
allowing 107 extra-base hits already. Baseball Prospectus' Keith Woolner
checks in with this list of the most extra-base hits allowed in a season
over the previous 20 years:
|
|
Year
|
Name
|
Team
|
XB hits
|
|
1996
|
Brad Radke
|
Minn.
|
101
|
|
1986
|
Bert Blyleven
|
Minn.
|
100
|
|
1999
|
Rick Helling
|
Tex.
|
98
|
|
1979
|
Phil Niekro
|
Atl.
|
97
|
|
1996
|
Mike Mussina
|
Balt.
|
95
|
|
1999
|
Pedro Astacio
|
Col.
|
94
|
|
1987
|
Bert Blyleven
|
Minn.
|
92
|
|
1980
|
Dennis Leonard
|
K.C.
|
92
|
|
1983
|
Rick Sutcliffe
|
Cle.
|
92
|
|
1998
|
Woody Williams
|
Tor.
|
92
|
|
1988
|
Doyle Alexander
|
Det.
|
91
|
|
1998
|
Charles Nagy
|
Cle.
|
91
|
|
1984
|
Lamarr Hoyt
|
Chi. (AL)
|
91
|
|
1987
|
Mike Witt
|
Cal.
|
91
|
|
1998
|
Livan Hernandez
|
Fla.
|
90
|
|
1987
|
Mike Moore
|
Sea.
|
90
|
|
1998
|
Jamie Moyer
|
Sea.
|
90
|
|
1997
|
Mark Leiter
|
Phi.
|
90
|
Nevertheless, Seattle GM Pat Gillick says we haven't
heard the last of all these complaints about the schedule. And the
unbalanced schedule that kicks in next year may cause as many problems as it
solves, Gillick says.
"I have a problem with a schedule so tight that a
club like Cleveland has to play three split doubleheaders in seven days,"
Gillick says. "I think we should cut the schedule back to 154 games so we
have time to make up these games. But with the unbalanced schedule next
year, it will only get worse. There are a lot of places we'll only go one
time. If we get washed out there, what do we do?"
When the Orioles consistently dodged questions about
Albert Belle's health for two weeks, they did nothing to stop rumors that
Belle has a degenerative hip condition similar to the one that ended Bo
Jackson's career in two sports. Belle now says he'll be able to play in the
final week, and the club finally denied the degenerative-hip reports. But
something clearly was wrong with this man -- because say what you want about
Albert, but he's not a .279, 22-homer kind of guy.
Mike Lieberthal became the latest Phillie to
bludgeon the state of Veterans Stadium this week. And the Vet might not be
meeting the wrecking ball any time soon. Philadelphia's city council is
required to put $80 million into renovating the Vet if a new stadium deal
isn't reached by Nov. 30. And with no stadium talks even going on between
the Phillies and the city, chances of that deal being reached grow
increasingly bleak.
In the meantime, the Phillies are now studying the
feasibility of real grass at the Vet, using the new grass-tray system that
allows the surface to be moved or removed for conversion to football.
With Gene Lamont clearly in his last week as Pirates
manager, more and more indications point toward the Pirates hiring Oakland
bench coach Ken Macha if Dusty Baker decides he isn't interested.
Useless information dept.
Was Sammy Sosa's 50th homer last Saturday the
least-heralded 50th home run ever? Had to be right up there. And maybe this
is the reason: Sammy's was the 12th season of 50 or more just since 1995.
Before that, there had been 12 since 1932 -- and just 14 since Babe Ruth's
50-plus explosion in the '20s.
Bartolo Colon's no-hit threat against the Yankees
reminded the world that the Yankees still haven't been no-hit since Hoyt
Wilhelm did it on Sept. 20, 1958. To put that in perspective, all those
other teams (except Tampa Bay) have been no-hit 109 times since then. The
Phillies and Giants have been no-hit nine times apiece. And the A's have
been no-hit eight times while playing in two different cities (Kansas City
and Oakland).
The Yankees have thrown five no-hitters themselves since
then (Dave Righetti, Jim Abbott, Dwight Gooden, David Wells, David Cone).
And the next-fewest times no-hit by a club in existence in 1958 is one, by
the Pirates. Only in New York.
You wouldn't think it would be that big a deal for
Tampa Bay to lose a 17-3 game -- except it was the Devil Rays who did that last
weekend, not the Buccaneers. You have to go back nine years to find the Bucs'
last 17-3 game -- a 17-3 win over Indianapolis on Dec. 22, 1991. The Bucs
haven't lost a 17-3 game since Oct. 1, 1989, at Minnesota.
The games aren't over at Enron Field for the season,
but in the dramatic Enron-versus-Coors Field race we've been monitoring all
year, our money is on Enron. Enron's first year, going into the final
homestand: 969 runs scored, 258 homers (489 runs, 131 homers by the home
team). Coors' first year (1995): 975 runs, 241 homers (485 runs, 134 homers
by the home team).
If the Braves' 12-10 win in Arizona last Saturday
didn't look much like a Braves kind of score, it's because it isn't. In
fact, it was only the second time in the Braves' last 1,616 regular-season
games in which they'd won a game in which they gave up 10 or more runs. The
previous two: July 14, 1996 (15-10 over Florida) and July 17, 1990 (14-10
over Philadelphia).
It's a rare week indeed when Junior Griffey and Mark
McGwire hit pinch-hit home runs in the same week -- but it just happened. Five
days after McGwire did his pinch-hit thing against the Cubs, Griffey thumped
his third career pinch homer (and first in 10 years) Wednesday, off Livan
Hernandez. The Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent, reports that his
others were May 16, 1989, off Bill Wegman, and Sept. 16, 1990, off Bryan
Harvey.
Meanwhile, McGwire is up to seven career pinch homers -- tied
for second-most among members of the 500 homer club. But he's got no shot to
take the lead in this esoteric race, because Willie McCovey hit 16, believe
it or not. Others with seven: Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Harmon
Killebrew.
Griffey's pinch bomb was especially notable because
it was the first time any player has hit a pinch homer for his 40th, 50th,
60th or 70th homer of a season. There have been three 30th homers that were
pinch-hit, according to Vincent: Bob Allison in 1964, Mike Schmidt in 1981
and Paul Sorrento in 1997.
And now the funkiest home-run race we've got going
into the final week: SABR's Lee Sinins reports that both Griffey and Sosa
have a shot at the prestigious record for most home runs hit during a
president's time in office. The record: 353, by Jimmie Foxx and FDR. But
Griffey has 351 during the Clinton administration, and Sosa has 349. Hail to
the chief.
Bartolo Colon and Chuck Finley made back-to-back
starts in Yankee Stadium last weekend in which they gave up one hit apiece.
Last time any team's starters gave up one hit each in back-to-back starts,
according to the Elias Sports Bureau: May 3-4, 1996, by Texas' Ken Hill and
Roger Pavlik, who threw complete-game one-hitters in Detroit.
It sums up Mike Mussina's year that he started last
Saturday in what turned into a 14-0 loss to Seattle. It was the Orioles'
worst shutout loss ever in a game Mussina started. Previous worst, according
to Elias: 11-0 to Cleveland, on June 13, 1995.
Alex Rodriguez has 38 home runs and only eight
errors. Last shortstop to have 30 more homers than errors, according to
Elias, was Ernie Banks in 1959 (45 home runs, 12 E's).
The Diamondbacks hit rock bottom when they lost
back-to-back 1-0 games to the Dodgers on Monday and Tuesday. They were the
first team to lose back-to-back 1-0 games to the same opponent since April
19-20, 1996, when the Cardinals pulled that trick on the Phillies.
The Diamondbacks' lousy finish has scrambled their
entire picture. But if you adjust your set, you'll find that Randy Johnson
has had one of the most dominating seasons ever (again). The Valley
Tribune's Ed Price reports that the Big Unit has had 23 games of 10 or more
strikeouts -- tying the record set by Nolan Ryan in 1973 and tied by Johnson
last year. And the Unit also has a nearly absurd 334-199 lead in the
strikeout race. The all-time record for biggest gap between a strikeout
champ and the runner-up: 143, by Johnson last year (over Kevin Brown).
And one more bulletin from our Unit Bureau.
Johnson's totals since his zero-strikeout game in New York on Aug. 25: 36
innings, 56 whiffs.
Our nomination for at-bat of the year goes to Carlos
Lee of the White Sox, for his 16-pitch marathon against Detroit's Jeff
Weaver last weekend. Here's the entire plot line, courtesy of the Detroit
Free Press' John Lowe: Two called strikes, two foul balls, ball one, five
straight foul balls, ball two, three more foul balls, then ball three and
ball four.
"We threw the whole sink at him," said
catcher Brad Ausmus.
When Ramon Martinez lost to Baltimore on Friday, it
was the first time in 82 starts (dating way back to July 1996) that he'd
lost back-to-back starts. That was the longest of any active starter,
according to Elias' Ken Hirdt. And who has the longest streak now? His
brother, that Pedro guy, with 58.
Then there's Kevin Brown, whose win over Arizona on
Monday (after a loss to the Diamondbacks in his previous start) kept another
back-to-back streak alive. The last time Brown made consecutive starts
against the same club and his team lost both games was August 1993, when he
was a Ranger -- and lost to the Red Sox twice in five days.
The Devil Rays (3-16 this month) and Cubs (3-17)
remain in the running for the coveted Worst September Ever award. Worst
record just in September, according to Elias: 3-17, by Ted Williams' 1972
Texas Rangers. Worst record in September-October: 4-22, by the '96 Tigers
and '78 Blue Jays. Can't beat this drama.
Jesus Sanchez just finished off maybe the most
well-traveled five-start sequence ever. He made successive road starts in
the Mountain (Colorado), Pacific (Arizona), Central (Houston) and Eastern
(Atlanta) time zones, then finished off his grand slam by starting in Canada
(Montreal). Adjust your watch, buddy.
Finally, the name-game developments of the week:
Bobby Jones relieved Bobby Jones again last Sunday. And Paul Volcker should
know that in last weekend's Phillies-Marlins series, the lineup cards
featured a Penny (Brad) and a Nickle (Doug). But Dave Cash couldn't make it.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com. Rumblings and Grumblings will appear each Saturday. | |
ALSO SEE
Jayson Stark archive
Stark: Week in Review
Dan Patrick: Omar Daal toughs it out
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